Tom Cable: Hard work made the man, and defines his challenge
The Shadow
David White, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tom Cable had all the makings of an NFL head coach from Season 1. He
slept rent-free on beachfront property. Someone drove him to work every
day. He never cooked his own meals. His closest friends were a future
NFL coach and a few future NFL assistants.
It all sounds so privileged, only there was nothing about Cable's 1989
season - spent as a San Diego State graduate assistant coach - that was
served with a silver spoon.
Cable was homeless. He had no car. He had little meal money. Twenty
year's later, nothing from his early resume suggests he could become the
head coach of the Oakland Raiders.
"That was about rock bottom," Cable said. "I didn't have a thing to my
name. I was broke as can be. I'm telling you, that was tough. Tough,
tough times."
No more. Cable has the second-grandest office space at Raiders
headquarters. He drives a well-waxed Hummer, but only because he lets
his wife drive the team-issued Mercedes Benz. He pays for group meals
with $100 bills while pulling in seven figures.
But turn around the losingest NFL franchise of the past six seasons?
Cable doesn't even flinch at the monumental task. After all, he was
never supposed to get here from there.
"You bet I appreciate what I have here," Cable said. "It's a dream come
true."
In 1989, Cable did all his dreaming from a sleeping bag on the Mission
Beach shoreline. Today, it's a sandy stretch of resorts, nightlife and a
roller coaster. Back then, it was one of the few public places where
police didn't shoo away overnight crashers.
He tried living in the Aztecs' football office, but the head coach
caught him and kicked him out. Fellow assistant coach Sean Payton had an
apartment but, at $305 a month, Cable couldn't afford rent.
"As a graduate assistant, you're just hoping to make an impression so
maybe one day someone will give you a chance," said Payton, now the head
coach of the Saints. "You're not making any money, you're sharing office
space and all that. The one thing about Tom is ... he's going to persevere."
There was always a 10-acre career waiting for him on the family farm in
Snohomish, Wash., where Cable first learned the feeling of hard work.
He would get up before winter's sunrise to unfreeze the well pumps,
scrape down the stalls and feed the chickens, all before heading off to
school.
"I didn't want to go back to that," Cable said. "I couldn't. Coaching is
all I ever wanted to do. I didn't know how I was going to make it, but I
had to find a way. You do what you have to do.
"When you're living on a beach, you've got a lot of time to think about
things ... time to find yourself out there, kind of figure things out."
Cable took an evening job selling Toyotas at a dealership. He added an
overnight job stocking groceries at Vons. Coping with sleep deprivation
was the worst part, Cable said, so he tried to nap on the city bus going
from one job to the next.
Remember when Whopper meals were $2.99 at Burger King? Cable lived on
those most every day. He showered in the team locker room. He borrowed
here and made do there until Cal State-Fullerton gave him a salaried
position the next year.
"Even then, when you kind of sensed it wasn't going to work for him, he
found a way," Saints assistant coach Bret Ingalls said. He grew up with
Cable in Snohomish and coached with him at San Diego State. Things were
hard for Ingalls, too, so he became Cable's occasional roommate at
Mission Beach.
"Not coming from maybe a spoon-fed background hasn't been a problem for
him," Ingalls said. "He's a tough guy, so when times are tough like they
were back then, it wasn't a problem. He always got through it.
"Now look at where he's at today."
As interim coach, Cable guided the Raiders through the post-Lane Kiffin
trauma last season. As the head coach, he must make quarterback JaMarcus
Russell great and the run defense better, beat the Chargers and - oh
yeah - end a six-year run of 11 or more losses.
Sounds like a walk on the beach compared with the summer of '89.
"Everything I went through prepared me for this," Cable said. "This is
everything I've worked for."
skep...@aol.com
Jaw Breaker Coldcock Cable? Has he been charged yet?